Erika stirred slowly, her toes stretching within her sandals, her shoulders shifting in search of a more comfortable position. She’d fallen asleep on the porch again, leaning against the wall, her feet hanging off the edge and hands folded quietly on her lap. An empty tea cup sat nearby, just out of reach. In her half-awake state, she could just hear the sound of rain falling outside, the gentle patter of rain on the roof lulling her back to sleep.
She shot upright several seconds later, eyes wide, heart racing. “The garden!” she sputtered, pushing herself upright and hurrying across the stone of the courtyard. If it was raining, the new seeds she’d planted that morning had a chance of washing up, and she needed to hurry and put a tarp over them before there was a chance for that to happen.
She stopped dead in her tracks, the last step of her wooden sandals feeling oddly loud compared to the rain. Slowly the gym leader tilted her head back, holding her hand out in search of water that never came. She could hear the droplets all around, but somehow they seemed distant, as though they were hitting a roof, despite her being outside. Indeed, the ground showed only a few faint dark circles, as though the rain had stopped as quickly as it had started.
Bewildered, she squinted at the sky, slowly realizing it carried a rose tint. The fog of her nap clearing slowly, she glanced back at the porch; sure enough, there was a second cup just a few feet from hers, but its drinker was nowhere to be found.
With a fond sigh and a soft shake of her head, Erika turned back, cutting through the long hall of her traditional-styled house to the back door.
Standing out back, eyes cast toward the sky, stood Sabrina, her faithful Kadabra at her side. Both had a look of lazy concentration on their faces, the way anyone else might have appeared while reading a mildly interesting book. A slight, deep pink glow shone in their eyes, their psychic power fueling the barrier overhead. The pink dome spread out over the house and the land surrounding it, forming an umbrella of mental energy that the raindrops ran down in little rivulets.
The vegetable garden, with its neat rows of freshly planted seeds, was undisturbed; if anything, it was drier than the courtyard had been.
“We have tarps for that, you know,” Erika teased, stepping up next to the elder woman.
The glow faltered in her eyes for a split second as she cast a mildly annoyed glance at her girlfriend, before resuming her concentration. “I didn’t know where they were.”
“You know what I mean. Someone being asleep has never stopped you from finding out what they know before.”
Sabrina sighed, crossing her arms. “You know I hate using my powers on you.”
“And yet you’ll stand out here for an hour, projecting a barrier to keep not just my carrots, but my whole house dry?”
“It was only about ten minutes.”
Erika couldn’t help but giggle, covering her mouth with her sleeve politely. She was sure Sabrina was right; she was honestly sure she could tell her how long it had been to the millisecond, and possibly tell her exactly how many raindrops the shield had deflected in that time. She was also sure that she would have stood out there all day and night, had the grass trainer not awoken so soon.
“Thank you,” she smiled, rising up to place a kiss on Sabrina’s cheek. Her eyes flickered again, her cheeks tinting to match them by the time she steadied her powers again.
“Hurry and get the tarps, would you?” she muttered. “This is getting boring.”
Erika’s cackle as she retreated into the house was far less polite.
